have enabled me to comply with this request and give the world a true,
unvarnished account of the causes of lynch law in the South.

This statement is not a shield for the despoiler of virtue, nor altogether
a defense for the poor blind Afro-American Sampsons who suffer themselves
to be betrayed by white Delilahs. It is a contribution to truth, an array
of facts, the perusal of which it is hoped will stimulate this great
American Republic to demand that justice be done though the heavens fall.

It is with no pleasure I have dipped my hands in the corruption here
exposed. Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned
against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. The
awful death-roll that Judge Lynch is calling every week is appalling, not
only because of the lives it takes, the rank cruelty and outrage to the
victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it places
against the good name of a weak race.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in
any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of
the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and
punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a
service. Other considerations are of minor importance.

IDA B. WELLS
_New York City_, Oct. 26, 1892




To the Afro-American women of New York and Brooklyn, whose race love,